The Archman

Chapter 7 - An Earnest Request

Eira sits up with a sudden inhale, waking from a tense, restless sleep. Her joints creak and crack from the hours spent on the hard wooden floorboards beneath her. It is a stark contrast to the soft bed she had been sleeping in just a few days ago. She puts a hand on her neck, which has a new ache inside it that wasn't present when she went to sleep. It seems like there isn't any feasible position she can sleep in to get comfortable.

Eira looks at the wooden wall of her cell, inspecting it for some indicators of daylight. Sure enough, a couple sparse rays of sunlight pierce through a few thin cracks in the woodwork. Though her body is still calibrated to the rising and setting of the sun, the artificial night of the brig was starting to throw that finely tuned system into imbalance.

The combination of the unnatural darkness and uncomfortable conditions made Eira's sleep more of a prolonged unconsciousness. She awoke feeling no more rested than she did when she fell asleep.

She runs a hand down her calf, reaching her ankles, where she pulls off her shoes - a pair of semi-fashionable platform slippers. She is glad to be wearing something more practical than stylish, but after two whole days wearing them, they were becoming increasingly painful to wear.

After tossing her shoes aside, Eira looks around her cell. Unsurprisingly, it is in the exact same state that she left it in. Now that the initial shock and adrenaline has worn off, her status as a prisoner is becoming increasingly evident.

She is becoming less and less concerned for her life, the dense boredom which had begun to define her days starting to occupy more and more of her psyche. She knows she can endure it for a little while longer, but the potentially perpetual nature of her imprisonment is starting to weigh more heavily upon her. She finds herself already fantasizing about having some kind of chore before her, anything which she can apply her labour onto to make the time pass. There is nothing around her which demanded any such attention, however.

The absence of opportunity amidst her cell inspires a certain thought in Eira. She had enough leverage to keep the Archman's wrath at bay, but there is no guarantee his patience will last. She has to take some kind of action towards liberating herself.

Looking around the cell, Eira finds herself at a loss for how to even conceive of an escape attempt. She will need to first remove the shackle which is still around her ankle, then find a way to either pick the lock on the cell door or break through the iron bars. Even after all that, she will just find herself stranded on a ship that is completely foreign to her, in waters she is totally unfamiliar with. If there is any getaway to be had, she will need a lot more information than she has now.

As if acting on cue, the door to the brig swings open on its iron hinges, a small amount of light pouring into the room from the hallway. The opening of the door is followed by the same sound that always comes after, the Archman's heavy metal-on-wood footfalls.

Eira can see a glint of silver hair and the glow of red eyes about six feet above the ground, moving through the corridor of cells. They are the only visible aspects of the Archman, other than his white shirt, which picks up a faint amount of light from around the room.

The Archman arrives before Eira's cell. Instead of fishing out the keyring from his belt, he squats down so he's on the same level as Eira, though he is still clearly in the presiding position. He reaches through the iron bars of the cell, holding some kind of glass receptacle, which is filled most of the way with water.

The glass container looks something like a vessel to be drunk from, but it has a distinctly mechanical feeling to it which betrays its sense of nourishment. Eira now remembers that she'd seen this kind of container before, in that macabre room she had been hauled into.